


Upper Hand

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Breathplay, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Power Dynamics, Sibling Incest, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-10 16:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'Not all that I ask for is intended to draw your amusement,' Loki says with the dry rasp on his words that would undo the silver tongue for which he is named, were it not for the purr of heat that is sufficient to ache heat into Thor’s blood even with the barely-restrained mocking on the statement." Loki has a request of Thor, and Thor has always been easily persuaded by his brother.





	Upper Hand

Thor rocks back over his knees to turn the full shape of his frown upon Loki sprawling before him. “You cannot be serious about this request. Is this another one of your jokes, brother?”

Loki rolls his eyes upward, tilting his head for good measure to add force to the gesture already crystal-clear without the rumple the action makes of the spill of dark hair laid over the sheets beneath them. “Not all that I ask for is intended to draw your amusement,” he says with the dry rasp on his words that would undo the silver tongue for which he is named, were it not for the purr of suggestion that is sufficient to ache heat into Thor’s blood even with the barely-restrained mockery on the statement. “This is no joke. Why must you doubt my sincerity at every turn?”

“You have given me ample education that it would be wise of me to, brother,” Thor tosses back, but he does not move to rise from the tangle of sheets where they have fallen and he doesn’t look away from Loki’s face. Loki lowers his chin somewhat, enough that he can cast the jewel-bright of his gaze through dark lashes at Thor over him. His smile remains, catching up at the corner of his mouth as if he’s holding a secret trapped in the back of his throat for his own use, but there’s a focus to his eyes that Thor has seen before, if on surpassingly rare occasions, and Thor’s spine prickles with certainty before Loki draws breath to speak again.

“I do not intend to waste my time educating you here,” he says, that silver cast to a knife sharp enough to draw blood from anyone foolish enough to test its point. “It is unfortunate that your...outside experience has not demonstrated the range of pursuits that may be of interest in the bedroom, that this is such a surprise for you.” Thor’s eyebrows climb towards his hairline -- Loki must be truly anxious, to be so casual about this subject -- but Loki is still talking, his words graceful as his lashes dip into seeming disinterest over his eyes. “If the answer is no then it is no, and I shall return to my own amusements. I believe illusions will serve me somewhat better than you will find yourself.”

Thor snorts. “You always had the more active imagination,” he says. “Especially when it comes to creating rejection that is not there.” That brings Loki’s gaze back to his face, sharp with temper now instead of the suggestion that was there a moment before, but Thor is leaning in already to cast the shadow of his shoulders over his brother’s pale skin and demand Loki’s attention for himself. When he reaches for the other’s shoulder Loki stiffens to his touch, his whole body tightening as if he’s expecting a blow, but Thor only settles his fingers close against Loki’s skin -- a habit formed from facing illusion too often to easily strip away now -- as he fixes the weight of his gaze on his brother’s eyes. “Loki. Do you truly desire this of me?”

Loki presses his lips together with force enough that what color clings there pales to the same chill white the rest of his body bears. With the dark of his hair spread out around him the shading seems the lighter, as if he might be made of snow and ice instead of the heat Thor inevitably finds waiting for him; but there is fire enough in his eyes, crackling free to spark the start of near-tears against the dark of his lashes as he looks up at Thor over him. Loki hesitates for a moment, lingering over a breath as if he might intend to deny his request or as if he might not answer at all; then he turns his head to the side, shifting his gaze away from Thor’s face as if that will hide the details of his expression from his brother’s steady focus.

“I would not ask if I did not,” he says, and then, immediately, before Thor can even draw breath to ask for an answer formed of more than doubled-over negatives: “I do.” His lashes draw down again; his throat works on a swallow. “Please, brother.”

Thor lets his breath out. Sincerity is rare in Loki at the best of times; to have it coupled with a desire keen enough to merit a plea from the brittle pride that Loki has formed into the very core of his being is something he can hardly recall ever seeing before, and something for which he has even less resistance than his usual surrender to anything Loki wishes of him. “Very well,” he says. Loki’s gaze slides sideways to land at his face again and Thor is waiting to meet him, facing straight-on what Loki can only find to offer in shadows and slanting focus. He smiles without making any attempt to hold back the tremor of uncertainty that finds its way onto his lips, a sign more of affectionate concern than of fear. “But you must tell me if it is too much.”

Loki snorts. “Have I not proven I can hold my own against you to your satisfaction?”

“Indeed, you have,” Thor says. “But that proof often comes with the edge of your knife in my skin, and I would rather avoid staining our sheets with blood.”

“So much for my next suggestion,” Loki says. He’s joking -- Thor is relatively certain of that -- but there’s a tension behind his eyes, more clear than that strain that never really leaves him and to which Thor has grown accustomed, and the shadow makes his tone sound more desperate than truly amused. “I shall make my discomfort known if you go too far, brother, and I shall hardly hold it against you if you do. There must be some pleasure to knowing you have the upper hand.”

Thor shrugs. “It is an experience I have learned not to take for granted with you, at least.” Loki’s mouth hardly twitches on a smile but the green of his eyes darkens, softening towards the dark of self-satisfaction, and it was that which Thor was seeking. He smiles in answer to Loki’s shimmer of pride and shifts himself on the bed, bracing his knees wider to find certain balance for himself. Loki shifts with him, tipping his legs apart around Thor’s hips with as much ease as if he doesn’t feel the strain of the position at the inside of his thighs at all, but his mouth has softened in spite of Thor’s attempts to ease him into the self-confidence he wears like regal robes, and Thor is sure that if he delays much longer he’ll find a tremor of nerves at the press of pale lips to each other. So he moves with speed, as if he is used to doing this, as if this is no more of a challenge than giving in to the allure of the illusions Loki sometimes wraps around himself, or their surroundings, or the both of them together, and when he sets a hand against the bed it’s only to brace his weight before he leans in to wrap his fingers close around the strain in Loki’s neck.

Loki draws a breath at the contact, sucking in a sharp inhale that proves his reaction as clearly as the tension Thor can feel shifting under his fingers, but he speaks at once, almost stumbling over the words in his haste to give form to an excuse for that too-quick breath. “This must be familiar,” he drawls, in that particular teasing tone that used to cut Thor’s patience to the quick and now seems like nothing so much as another one of the illusions that Loki drapes around him to blur the edges of his existence into what he wishes them to be instead of what they are. “You always were in a hurry to shut me up when we got into a fight.”

“Only because I do not trust your tongue,” Thor tells him. He can feel Loki’s voice humming against his palm pressing to the other’s neck; when he shifts his grip Loki’s chin rises without his request, angling into surrender even if his lips are still curling on that smile as much taunt as pleasure. “You are so in love with the sound of your own voice you hardly spare any appreciation for the words of others.”

Loki’s bare shoulder draws up to meet the sideways angle of his head as he shrugs away this observation. “It is my best weapon,” he says. “You can hardly expect me to meet you on physical terms when those are so loaded in your favor.”

“And yet you ask for this,” Thor reminds him, and slides his palm down by a half-inch to feel out the shape of Loki’s neck beneath his grip. Loki is right, this is hardly the first time Thor has offered the threat of his hold to stifle the ever-lulling murmur of the other’s voice, but Thor was always trembling with anger before, alight through the whole of his body with heat that threatened to burn the both of them to ash together, and if there was an intimacy to the motion it was only recognized in the darkest hours of the night, when moonless dark gave enough of a curtain for Thor to shut his eyes and paint his deepest fantasies across his imagination. This is under illumination enough to find the hints of well-hidden color under even Loki’s pale skin, and with Thor’s heart beating hard on the adrenaline curling warmth low in his belly instead of sparking electricity across his shoulders. When he tightens his grip it’s with his attention on the dip of Loki’s lashes and the part of Loki’s lips shaping the outline of a moan that goes unvoiced but for the tip of his head against the pillows.

Thor’s whole body is glowing. He feels strength trembling in his fingers with an awareness of power like he’s never felt before, latent ability honed to a razor-keen edge against the stillness of the moment. His fingers are pressing against Loki’s throat, gentle now but still squeezing pressure against the pale skin, making the outline of a threat against the other’s breathing; and Loki is surrendering, as Thor has never seen him surrender before, going slack against the sheets beneath them as his lashes fall to shadow the clear edge of his gaze and his mouth gives up the tension it usually holds to with such determination. The harder Thor presses the more Loki gives way, spending his resistance as if it means nothing at all, until Thor feels his thoughts spinning with as much dizzy distraction as if he has drunk too deeply of some overrich wine, until he must speak as much to prove himself master of his own tongue as anything else.

“Brother,” he says, and there is a tremor on his throat if not in his fingers, an uncertainty stalled somewhere in the back of his thoughts before it can travel to his hands. “I am not hurting you?”

Loki’s mouth curves up at the corners, drawing into the sharp edge of tension that is reassuringly familiar, when so much else about this feels somewhere between the haze of dreams and the unexplored expanse of possibility. “I told you that I would tell you if you were,” he says, and opens his eyes enough to cast lash-darkened attention up at Thor over him. “Do you have so little trust for me, brother?”

Thor huffs a laugh. “I would be a fool to give you more.”

Loki’s shoulder comes up in a shrug again. “So be it,” he says, and lifts his hand from where it’s been resting heavy at the sheets next to him. His fingers seek out Thor’s bare skin, sliding across the other’s side and down to pool his touch in the dip of the other’s spine; when he spreads his fingers wide Thor can feel the grip of Loki’s fingerprints flex against him to make a suggestion if not quite a demand. “And if I ask you to make a fool of yourself for me?”

Thor spends his breath, emptying his lungs into a sigh that he knows to be as much resignation as Loki must hear it. “I always am,” he says, and he tightens his fingers around Loki’s throat to bear down against the rhythm of breathing in the other’s chest. Loki’s lashes weight again, Loki’s head falls heavy to the pillow beneath his dark-spreading hair, and his hand against Thor’s back flexes to catch his nails in against the other’s skin. Thor shifts his weight down, obedient to the persuasion of Loki’s hand pressing against him, and Loki rises to meet him, first with a leg catching around Thor’s hip to match his bracing palm and then with a tilt of his own hips, as if the weight of Thor’s grip on his neck is enough to unravel the demands of gravity from the rest of his body and leave him free to answer only the persuasion of Thor’s own. Thor’s skin prickles with sensation, as alight as if with the electricity that sometimes seems to flow through him in place of the blood Loki so often draws from his veins, but the only power against Loki is what exists in the set of Thor’s hands, of Thor’s grip closing on the other’s neck.

Thor can feel Loki’s breathing tightening beneath him, narrowing beneath the demand of Thor’s grip, and Loki arches his back as if under the spell of a lover, as if Thor’s hands at his neck are as good as the other’s length working within his body. Thor’s cock jumps at his hips, swelling with heat as he watches Loki tremble beneath him; Loki’s is hot already, straining towards the taut flat of his stomach to give proof of the arousal Thor can feel straining against his grip as Loki writhes beneath him. Thor hardly knows what to offer, what more he can give; finally he rocks his weight down, lowering the span of his body to close the distance between himself and Loki beneath him. Loki’s lips part onto a shape soft enough that Thor needs no sound to know it for a moan, and when his body curves up it carries intent with it, a raw sensuality that spends itself in the hot slide of his cock riding the friction of Thor’s thigh up to the angle of the other’s hip. Loki moves again at once, hardly finishing his first curving motion before arcing into another, and Thor stays steady over him, his body giving the same resistance his fingers offer to close off the breath in Loki’s throat. Loki’s cheeks are flushing, the pale skin taking on the faint pink shading that always proves the best giveaway for his arousal, and his eyes are shut as he loses himself to the heat trembling such force through his body. With no audience Thor may linger over the other’s expression as he chooses, may parse the curve of Loki’s parted lips and the sheen of heat-sweat forming against dark hairline as he might linger in appreciating a beautiful sculpture. But Loki is no cool stone, no distant art; he is present, as real and warm as Thor has ever known him to be, with the racing rhythm of his heartbeat beating a pattern for itself upon the grip of Thor’s hands clasped around his throat.

Thor eases his grip, once, when Loki’s flush is darkening to red and the movement of his body is more helpless struggle than sensual curve. He has no desire to cause his brother pain, even at Loki’s express request, and as soon as his grip eases Loki gasps a straining breath as if he is surfacing from some endless ocean. Thor lets go the breath he had been holding in his own chest without realizing it, eases his hold in anticipation of Loki’s next request, but when Loki opens his eyes there is anger there instead of relief, the sparks of razor-edged temper crackling behind his lashes as he gasps for breath and reaches to dig his fingernails into Thor’s forearm with force enough that Thor hisses at the hurt.

“Brother,” Loki hisses, his voice rasping over temper and the roughness of his throat in equal measure. “Did I ask you to stop?”

“You couldn’t breathe,” Thor protests. “It was too much.”

“That is the _ point_,” Loki grates, and digs his hold in tight around Thor’s arm. “Grant me the freedom to decide for myself what is too much.” He pulls at Thor’s forearm, lean muscle flexing underneath the pale skin of his wrist and arm and shoulder, and Thor gives way to let himself be drawn forward and down, to return the pressure of his grip to Loki’s throat at the other’s urging. Loki arches up into the force, his lashes dipping again as his lips part on a breathless moan, and as Thor tightens his grip Loki reaches his free hand down. Thor expects him to clasp his grip around himself, to pursue the satisfaction that his body is clearly trembling for, but when Loki’s fingers find heat it is Thor’s length they shape around. Thor groans in the depths of his chest, his hips jerking forward against the slide of Loki’s fingers against him, and Loki’s lips curve towards the sketch of a smile before he closes his grip as tight around Thor as Thor’s hands are pressing to his throat. His wrist works, his hold urging persuasion to strain at Thor’s spine, and Thor sets free a breath and leans in to couple the press of his hands with the heat of his body fitting close to Loki’s beneath him.

Thor thinks he will be the one to give way first. It seems a given, with Loki’s grip working elegant temptation over him and no more than what friction Loki can find for himself at Thor’s hip in exchange. Certainly his satisfaction is an inevitability from the moment Loki touches him; Thor’s arousal has been surging in him with every shift of Loki’s body beneath his, as Loki’s own pleasure is made unapologetically evident with each flex of muscle and slide of skin. But Loki’s grip tightens as Thor’s hold lingers, his fingers flexing to ache nearly over the cusp of pain in the heat-haze of Thor’s awareness, and it is just as Thor’s body is flushing with the last rush towards release that Loki crests under him, his body arching up in implicit denial of gravity itself to fit liquid-close to Thor’s own. Loki’s throat works, Thor feels the shape of a moan fitting itself beneath his fingers, and when Loki comes it is with the tremors of pleasure in him breaking themselves upon Thor’s body.

Thor groans, as heated by Loki’s satisfaction as by his own, and before he can think whether to ease his hold or not Loki’s fingers are clutching against his wrist, the other’s grip unmistakable command for Thor to remain. Loki opens his eyes, green emerging to glitter under the shadow of his lashes, and when he casts his gaze down Thor understands the weight of meaning in Loki’s attention before the fingers gone pleasure-slack around him tighten once more. Thor draws a breath to steady himself, and Loki lifts his gaze back to hold the other’s, and when he strokes there is the tension of determination at his lips, however pale they may be. His gaze allows no refusal, his grip demands surrender; and so Thor lets his back arch, and lets his lashes dip, and lets the heat sweep up and over him. His fingers flex, his thumb slides to a caress, and when Loki’s grip pulls over him Thor comes with a shout to give voice for them both at once. Loki’s lips flicker upwards, determination giving way to taut-strung amusement, and when his grip loosens at Thor’s wrist Thor follows his example and eases his hold to give Loki back the gasping range of breath for his lungs.

Thor can only hold himself up for so long. He can feel the strain in his shoulders as his body protests for ease after its efforts; and Loki is languid beneath him, relaxation spilling him heavy over the bed instead of arching up to meet Thor over him. Thor must lean in, must weight his forehead to the pillow over Loki’s shoulder and cast his body down to press Loki into the bed beneath his weight, and under him Loki huffs a weak laugh.

“I see you have developed a taste for this,” Loki observes. Against Thor’s hair there is the friction of a touch, fingertips sliding gently across the back of his head and through the locks. “Do you mean to take my breath hostage by force instead of skill, now?”

Thor snorts a laugh against the sheets beneath them. “I can render you breathless in a thousand different ways, brother.”

“_Can _ you?” Loki asks. “I hope you are prepared to demonstrate.”

“I am,” Thor says. His body is too heavy for him to see a good reason to rouse himself from his present position, but he does raise his head, if only by a few inches so he can look down at Loki beneath him. Loki’s eyes are as bright as ever, his mouth holding back the amusement he seems to carry with such ease, but his lashes are heavy over his gaze, and the shadows they cast make his taunting laugh look more an invitation than anything else. Thor gazes at him, appreciating the flush on his cheeks, the color in his lips, the pale line of his throat already freeing itself of the print of fingers, before he lets his mouth pull into a grin. “Would you like that demonstration now?”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “If you’re not too tired.”

“For you?” Thor says. “Never.” He lifts his hand to touch to Loki’s cheek, pressing warmth there before sliding down to brace against the other’s jaw. Loki is smiling when Thor leans down to kiss him, his lips taut on the tension of laughter, but his mouth is warm at Thor’s own, and when Thor draws his thumb down he can feel the steady rhythm of Loki’s heart beating in harmony with his own.


End file.
